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What a day today! I slept very badly as was woken up at 1AM by heavy rain falling on our tent and then, later, by footsteps outside and around our campsite. Fortunately, we were neighbours with a Polish family that had driven all the way from New Jersey in their 4x4 to the Southwest and were exploring the off-road trails. They were very well equipped and they let us borrow their stove when our cheapo Walmart special stopped functioning so we could make some much needed tea and coffee in the morning. I have difficulty functioning without my morning cup of coffee nowadays - I blame it on the altitude sickness.
After breakfast and rolling up all the camping gear, we headed out on a small hike along Knife Edge Trail. The parking lot there was empty and we didn't come across anyone along the path. The views across the Colorado basin went on for miles and it was great to see the the summer flowers and berries all around us. We even posed for a few shots and chatted and laughed as we walked along relishing the morning sunshine. We'd almost reached the end of the trail when we heard a long, loud, deep growl coming from the seemingly and impenetrably thick forest growth. Wendy peeped, "Did you hear that?". I responded, "Yes, do you think we should head back now?". We quickly turned around and walked swiftly back, picking up rocks along the way and looking over our shoulders every 30 seconds! That was quite a hair-raising experience and whatever it was that was warning us to stay away, we were certainly not going to ignore the message.
Upon exiting the park, I stopped at the entrance to ask the ranger about what it could have been and she thought that it was probably a black bear mom warning us to stay away from her cubs rather than a mountain lion or coyote. So, although we didn't see the bear face-to-face, we are certain that we had an (almost) close encounter with one, and that's good enough for us!
Having had a very brisk morning walk, we'd built up quite an appetite and decided to do the touristy thing and have a picnic at the Four Nations Park en route to Monument Valley. This is the geographical place where the four states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet - it is now managed by Native Americans and you have to pay $3 to enter. There is no running water there and not a single tree - not even one. There is partial shade at the picnic spots but it is still as hot as hell and feels like you're slowly being roasted in a fan-assisted oven. I'd bought a salad to eat for lunch but Wendy insisted on cooking her sausages in the blazing midday sun, gale-force winds and with a threatening storm approaching from the distant mesas. There were plenty of stalls selling Native arts and crafts around the memorial and we both ended up buying some jewellery. I learnt my first Navajo word: "ah-he-he", which means thank you.
We soldiered on towards Monument Valley on quite a long drive with the cloud-coverage becoming progressively heavier and stormier. The rock formations in the area are awesome and look like some giant being has sculpted them from gigantic lumps of clay. There is only 1 campsite just outside the park and it was quite full by the time we got there, but luckily we managed to get an unreserved site and pitch our tent before dark. Nothing much to do except do our laundry and cook some dinner before going to bed early.
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